Well, Mr Spooge, I'm no expert but here is my favorite list of
beginning books. I've read them, and still get things out by rereading
them.
Yasser Seirawan's "Play Winning Chess" is pretty good. It's part of a
series he wrote, including other titles like "winning chess
tactics", "winning chess strategy", and so forth. It's currently out of
print but generally easy to find in used book stores. Book stores like -
oh, say Powells, for instance. Yes, go to Powell's, Powell's is calling
you. Stay there all day, hang out in the Green room. Go have a latte,
look at chess books....
At about the same level, a bit drier in style, is John Nunn's "Learn
Chess". There are parts of it I like better than Seirawan's book, and
parts I like less. (For instance, early on he shows "how easy" it is to
win when you are up a piece - in the example, a knight. HA!. I've
never been able to beat the computer using that game - and in his
example, it took something like 60 moves to win. Not my idea of
easy). And some things I liked alot - examples of simple
combinations from actual grandmaster games. Nice to see the big
boys get caught off guard with simple forks and pins too!
Both are good in that they do start with the very very basics, but
quickly get into concepts of strategy and tactics and general principles
of what to do, and are well illustrated with examples from real games.
Another book, along different lines, is an old one by Irving Chernev
called "Logical Chess Move By Move". I love this book. It's a series of
annotated games, with the reason behind each move clearly
explained - AND it points out where the losing side went wrong -
usually quite a few moves before things obviously fall apart. I
found/find it quite an enlightening book.
If you are beyond those, I'm sure other's will respond too.